


and yet we belong

by gealbhan



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash February, Kid Fic, Late Night Conversations, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: Dorothea opens the door. As expected, she gets a single beat of silence before she’s swarmed by children, a storm of cheers and yells of “Mrs. Dorothea!” and “Welcome back!” So flooded is she that she can barely close and lock the door through her own greetings, genuine but blunted by her struggles, and she looks around with an edge of desperation for any sort of assistance.“Now, now,” comes a voice from the back of the room, and Dorothea meets Mercedes’s warm eyes. “Give Mrs. Dorothea some breathing room, all right? She’s had a very busy day, I’m sure.”
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 59
Collections: FE Femslash February 2020





	and yet we belong

**Author's Note:**

> written for day 11 of fe femslash february: festive at the request of a curiouscat anon! this loosely follows my [dorocedes paired ending](https://twitter.com/birdmarrow/status/1219802319748923392).
> 
> title from mary oliver's "blossom." enjoy!

When Dorothea goes home, the sky is almost pitch black and snow is falling. Years ago, she would have been too nervous to walk home alone like this—but time has burned away her reservations, and since she now has the tools with which to take care of herself, she looks out for anyone else she sees on their lonesome as best she can. Tonight, though, it seems that she is the only one around for miles. The late hour and incoming blizzard have driven everyone inside. Dorothea’s family must be no different.

Even with her relative confidence, Dorothea exhales with relief, fogging the air, when she sees the orphanage that doubles as her and her wife’s home. She clutches her coat tighter around herself as she climbs the steps. She hadn’t performed tonight, but she’d still spent long enough at the opera house that her bones ache, and she’s ready for the peace and quiet she doubts she’ll get for at least another half hour.

She takes a deep breath as she extracts the key from her pocket. It twists in the lock, producing a _click_ , and with a weary smile, Dorothea opens the door.

As expected, she gets a single beat of silence before she’s swarmed by children, a storm of cheers and yells of “Mrs. Dorothea!” and “Welcome back!” So flooded is she that she can barely close and lock the door through her own greetings, genuine but blunted by her struggles, and she looks around with an edge of desperation for any sort of assistance.

“Now, now,” comes a voice from the back of the room, and Dorothea meets Mercedes’s warm eyes. “Give Mrs. Dorothea some breathing room, all right? She’s had a very busy day, I’m sure.”

The number of children diminishes. Dorothea sighs, gives Mercedes a grateful smile that’s brushed off with a twinkling grin, and takes the opportunity to set her scarf and bags down.

She’s straightening back up when four-year-old Otto tackles her in a hug. With a start, Dorothea crouches to wrap her arms around him in turn. Of course, this sets off a chain reaction of all of the other kids still gathered around wanting hugs as well.

“Hey, c’mon, you guys heard Mrs. Mercedes,” says twelve-year-old Reza. “You can hug Mrs. Dorothea plenty later, okay?” He nudges Diana, second-youngest at five, and Adrian, barely older than her at six, away with an apologetic grin over his shoulder. He hadn’t had biological siblings back in Almyra, he’d told Dorothea once, but he’d had plenty of cousins, so he’s used to herding the younger kids.

When Dorothea tries to step back, Otto’s grip tightens. Being a toddler (and a smaller-than-average one at that, though Mercedes has said not to worry too much yet— _Emile wasn’t much bigger when he was that age,_ she always says, _and look at him now!_ ), he isn’t strong enough to stop her, but the intent is clear.

“Oh, you don’t want to let go?” Otto shakes his head, and Dorothea hides laughter behind her palm. “Okay, okay. But I have to get into the room, sweetheart. Do you mind if I pick you up?” A pause, and then Otto shakes his head again. He doesn’t speak much—he _can_ , as far as Dorothea knows, but he doesn’t seem to like it—which is just fine but requires a bit more heavy lifting in conversations than with most of the others. Dorothea hefts him up and smiles when he wraps both arms around her neck to steady himself. “Okay, here we go! Hold on tight, okay?”

As she stands, she gets a chance to look around. Most of the children have listened to Mercedes and Reza and sat back down, entertaining themselves or talking to Mercedes, who’s seated in the rocking chair with a mug of cocoa in her lap. Reza has gathered some of the younger kids—Diana, Adrian, and nine-year-old Florence—to resume a card game it looks like they’d been playing beforehand.

More than a few pairs of eyes are drooping in exhaustion. Dorothea ruffles nine-year-old Baltasar’s hair as she passes. He jolts awake and almost slams his head into the wall before he catches himself and, blushing, keeps on reading. Next to him, eight-year-old Luisa giggles.

What catches Dorothea’s attention most, though, is the interior itself. Saint Seiros Day isn’t for a couple of weeks yet, but although it’s not a popular holiday nowadays, Mercedes has decorated in preparation for the festivities, making the home lively in contrast to the dreary weather. Wreaths and children’s drawings are thrown up on the walls. Figurines and other trinkets sit on the shelves. A painting from last year decorates the hearth: Dorothea, Mercedes, and a handful of children (some that still live here, some that don’t) huddled together and wearing colorful Mercedes-knitted sweaters.

Reasonably, Dorothea had balked when Mercedes had first brought up celebrating Saint Seiros Day a couple of years back. Mercedes had clarified that she would be taking her childhood nostalgia and combining it with their experiences to create an altogether different celebration: A holiday to celebrate their allies and the fall rather than the rise of Saint Seiros, only on the same day as her birth. It had seemed odd to Dorothea to celebrate such bloodshed, but she’d supposed that was what most Church holidays had boiled down to.

So now they celebrate their own Saint Seiros Day—one about them, Edelgard, and their victory. Most of the kids are too young to remember Seiros as more than the complicated monster the history books will teach her as now, so it had worked out for them too.

Mercedes stands as Dorothea approaches. Her short hair is pulled back into that bun she always wears it in after the sun goes down, wisps curling out from her ears. “Welcome home, dear,” she says. “How are you?”

“Good evening, darling. I’m glad to be home,” says Dorothea, leaning in to kiss Mercedes on the cheek, which instantly makes the children giggle and squawk and, in Otto’s case, wriggle out of her arms (though Viktoria, the current oldest at fifteen, only rolls her eyes). She smiles as she leans back to eye the lipstick mark left on Mercedes’s skin. “How has your day been?”

Mercedes’s eyes light up. “Productive, as you can see,” she says, gesturing to all of the new decor.

“That I can. It looks absolutely lovely,” Dorothea tells her, nodding at the kids in the vicinity as well. “Did Jeritza come by to help?” Some of the decorations seem to be higher than Mercedes can reach, and none of the kids—even wiry Viktoria—are close to her height yet. (If they’ll ever be. Mercedes might not be quite as tall as her brother, but she’s pretty statuesque in her own right.)

“He did! My, he was so sweet about the whole thing, too.” Reminiscing, Mercedes rests her cheek against her palm. “He’s not all that comfortable around the children, you know, but he let Beatrix and Maximilian untangle him when he got the garland stuck around himself, didn’t he?” The twins in question—tied for third-oldest at ten, a pair of small-means nobles whose parents had died of illness some summers ago—nod. “And he helped us reach everything we couldn’t. Ah, it was nice to see him again. I do wish he’d stop by more often.”

She sighs, and Dorothea distracts the kids from her wistful expression by asking what they thought of Mr. Jeritza. (Those stories are always some of her favorites—the general reactions range from “He looked really scary, but he was actually really nice” to “He showed me his swords and told me he’d teach me how to use one someday, so he’s super cool” to “Is he really related to Mrs. Mercedes?” As far as she knows, no one has stayed scared of Jeritza for long, but he still worries.) Mercedes shoots her a smile and clears her throat.

“Everyone stayed up for you,” she says to Dorothea in a stage whisper. “I tried my very best to get them to bed, but they told me they just _had_ to say goodnight to Mrs. Dorothea first.”

“Did they now?” Dorothea looks around to see all of those tired faces—she herself is exhausted, but the kids are still awake enough to flock to her. Or at least pretending like they are. “Now, I’m happy you all waited up for me,” she tells the room at large, jovial but with a serious edge that makes everyone listen, “but I think it’s far past most of your bedtimes?”

“ _I_ don’t have a bedtime,” says Viktoria with a gloating grin. Mercedes gently shushes her.

Dorothea nods at her wife, raises a reassuring hand toward an abashed Viktoria, and turns back toward the rest of the kids. “I know you’re all very bright,” she assures, “but if you want to grow up strong like the two of us, you have to get plenty of sleep. That includes you, Viktoria, but you’re old enough to set your own schedule now. So why don’t we get you all off to bed?”

Reluctant glances are exchanged among the children. Dorothea waits for them to speak before she pushes the issue, and she’s surprised when Luisa chimes, “Can you read us a story first?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve done that,” says Dorothea, blinking. She reads to the younger ones quite often, whether when they’re trying to get to sleep or just want to hear her voice, but it’s rare that the entire orphanage population wants one. “You still like my stories?”

A chorus of “Yes” and “Of course” arises—she even earns nods from Otto and, even more surprisingly, Viktoria, though hers is more reluctant. Dorothea turns to Mercedes, who offers an encouraging smile, and huffs in mock resignation.

“All right, I guess I could read to you,” she drawls out, finger to her chin. “But I don’t think it’s the right mood in here for a story, do you? Hmm, no, things are usually much more dramatic. Give me one moment.”

She pulls the curtains and relights the hearth with a blast of fire magic that makes the kids _ooh_ and _aah_. These days, Dorothea doesn’t use her magic often, the joy she’d once taken in her talent dampened by what she’d used it for during the war, the dark—if faded by time and Mercedes’s healing magic—scars crawling up to her elbows. But it’s always nice to reignite (no pun intended) her passion. The easily impressed younger children crow with delight when Dorothea or Mercedes so much as heals up a papercut, but still, it’s nice.

The warmth filling the entire room now isn’t so bad either. Dorothea shrugs off her coat and sets it down as a blanket. Mercedes is quick to follow her intention and seat herself upon the coat, leaving enough room for Dorothea and ushering the children to gather before her. They do so without hesitation.

Dorothea grabs a book off the shelf at random and returns to a crowd of whispering children. The sleep hasn’t yet faded from their eyes, but excitement has taken it over for the time being. They all fall silent at her approach.

She settles in beside her wife, pressing their sides together and linking their arms together as she opens the book. Dorothea lifts her head to fix her rapt audience with a look. “Just one story, okay? And then we’re all going to go to sleep. Mrs. Dorothea is tired, and by this point, I’m sure all of you are too.”

Another beat of silence, and then comes a series of affirmative mumbles. Dorothea glances at Mercedes, whose smile is serene but whose eyes are sharp as she regards the children. Her face softens back up as she leans against Dorothea.

With a smile, Dorothea begins to read: “It was a dark and stormy night…”

*

After Dorothea finishes her story and is forced to read it several more times over by eager children (“If you just reread the same story, it’s still technically _one story_ , right?” Florence had said, and Dorothea had cursed Hubert for teaching her children flawless logic), growing more tired with each reading, and all of the kids are asleep or good at faking it, she and Mercedes head to bed. Dorothea changes into her nightgown while Mercedes flops face-down onto the bed.

“Long day?” asks Dorothea with a little chuckle.

“Goodness, yes.” Mercedes sits back up against the pillows and covers a yawn with her hand. “I love all of the children dearly, and it was so lovely to see Emile, but I suppose it takes it out of you after some time.”

“Trust me, I get it.”

Dorothea rests on the other side of the bed. She follows Mercedes’s lead and doesn’t pull the blankets up over them, only pressing her side to Mercedes’s for warmth. Mercedes is colder than usual, lacking the heat of Dorothea’s fire spell, but huddling close together is comfortable enough. At their sides, Dorothea intertwines their hands. Mercedes shivers when Dorothea’s wedding ring brushes her bare skin.

“Sorry, darling,” says Dorothea under her breath, making to pull her hand away.

Mercedes shakes her head and holds on tighter. “The temperature startled me, that’s all.” Her face is softer in the low moonlight, a touch of somberness in her eyes despite the reflexive curve of her smile. “You did a wonderful job back there.”

“I would be nothing without your silly voices for the animals,” retorts Dorothea.

“Well, we make a good team!” With a giggle, Mercedes jostles their shoulders together. “If the snow sticks, we should take them out to play in the afternoon. I expect Viktoria is used to it by now—” she hails from northern Faerghus, after all “—but this should be at least Otto and Diana’s first snow, I believe. Or the first one they’re fully cognizant of.”

“I think you’re right.” Tone faintly longing, Dorothea tilts her head to rest against Mercedes’s. “That’s a good idea. I don’t think I have anything to do tomorrow, so I’ll be happy to help.”

Mercedes sighs with relief and reaches over with her free hand to pat Dorothea’s thigh. “Oh, good. And not only for my benefit—the children love it when you’re around.”

Though this is something she knows by this point, a blush blooms across Dorothea’s cheeks. She rests the entirety of her weight onto Mercedes. “I love being around them too.”

“I’m sure they know that,” Mercedes assures her.

Dorothea’s eyelids are growing heavier by the moment, and while any other time she would be happy to take the assurance and settle down to sleep, now something else is weighing at the back of her mind. “I’m really grateful to be around them now in particular—you know, with the holiday. Before the Black Eagle Strike Force, I’d always been alone for this sort of thing,” she admits, head lowered. Mercedes watches in silence but nods her on. “Before then, I had the opera company, but the only one I was ever really close to was Manuela.”

“And now?” asks Mercedes, head on Dorothea’s shoulder. Her fingers squeeze Dorothea’s in further encouragement.

“Now—” Dorothea takes a breath. “Now, I’ve got people that I would go through hell and back for, and—” her voice cracks “—that would do the same for me. Close friends I fought a war with.” Mercedes’s thumb runs along the back of her knuckles. “I have a home and a family inside. And I have you, dear,” she adds, tilting Mercedes’s chin up to give her a short, sweet kiss. “And I never have to spend nights like these alone.”

There isn’t much light in their room, but Mercedes’s smile shines as brightly as if the sun herself were hanging above their bed. “Such lively celebrations are new for me as well,” she confesses, looking down. “Like you, I never really had anyone, excepting the clergy I grew up with—and then, I suppose, the Blue Lions. And finally the Black Eagles, and all of you here.” Sadness crosses her expression before she clears her throat and covers it with another, softer smile. “But that’s exactly why the first thing I set out to do was open this orphanage. Too many children have had to grow up, well, like us. We won’t be able to spare every child in the world a life of hardships, but we can do what we can for those the Goddess has brought to us.”

Dorothea has never been able to reconcile her opinion of the Goddess with Mercedes’s—while different, their living situations growing up had both been tough. Dorothea had turned against the Goddess in her anger and despair, but Mercedes had gone the opposite direction, seeking her light for guidance. But even if her faith only falls in her companions, Dorothea can respect Mercedes’s. That said, such statements tend to make her recoil on instinct. Mercedes soothes her with a squeeze of her hand.

“You’ve heard it from me plenty already,” says Dorothea, thinking of the first time they’d met after the war, when she’d just about talked Mercedes’s legs off about how cool and inspirational what she was doing was, “but I agree wholeheartedly. And I’m beyond delighted that you and I can work to accomplish that together.”

“As am I,” says Mercedes at once. She leans toward Dorothea to peck her on the cheek, leaving a tingling feeling and a smile on Dorothea’s lips. Then she pauses and touches her own cheek. “Oh my, have I gone with your lipstick on my cheek this entire time?”

Gentle mood broken, Dorothea bursts out into hysteric giggles. “I do believe so,” she manages to wheeze out, amusement only furthered by the look on Mercedes’s face.

“Oh dear. That would explain why Adrian and Diana kept looking at me and giggling to themselves.” Mercedes sighs—she’s pretending like she isn’t affected by Dorothea’s laughter, but Dorothea can see the way her lips are twitching at the corners—and feels around for the lipstick on her face. She scrubs it off with the sleeve of her robe.

Dorothea keeps laughing all the while, a dull ache in her ribs. “Oh, like you haven’t done the same exact thing to me,” she tells her wife’s forced frown. She’s wiped off what remains of her lipstick, so she sees no harm in leaning forward to kiss the tip of Mercedes’s nose. Mercedes jolts with pleased surprise, and Dorothea leans back with her hand on Mercedes’s cheek. “Sorry, my beloved. I’ll make it up to you some other time.”

“I should hope so,” says Mercedes, sniffing, but the effect is ruined by her glowing smile. She steals one more kiss before settling down into the sheets and pulling Dorothea to lie down with her. “Goodnight, Dorothea. I love you.”

She insists on always having an exchange like this at night, and Dorothea can find no problems in it. She settles into Mercedes’s warm embrace. “I love you too, Mercedes,” she says, a soft breath against Mercedes’s neck as her eyes fall shut. “Sweet dreams, darling.”

They curl up to sleep, ready to face the coming dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> a small note bc i noticed something that reflects an unfortunate trend in real-life adoption/foster care: here dorothea and mercedes are only shown with 4-15 year olds in the home bc i figured i would have to put a bit more effort (which i did not have time for) into writing older kids instead of Generic Kid Personalities, but they have and will take in orphans of any age!
> 
> anyway, thanks so much for reading! if you have time to spare, comments and kudos are always appreciated <3
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/withlittlequill) | [tumblr](https://infernallegaycy.tumblr.com)


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